5 Essential Traits for Community Managers.
Somedays I think it would be very cool to be a “community manaager”. Other days – not so much.
Community manager is the new it position in social media. To establish hardcore communities of evangelists around your brand, you need to have one. However, what makes up a successful community manager? Every community manager must have their own style and idea about how to run things for their company, right?
It’s a good read either way.
Posted in Quick Post, community, social media, wedia 
Tags: community, Community manager, social media, social network 
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Image by hebedesign via Flickr
Seth Godin posted an article called “The Noise“:
If you looked at web activity, you could rightfully assume that the web consists largely of porn, gossip, Britney Spears searches, trolls, trivia, anger, complaints, flirting and self-absorption.
…
What I’m encouraging you to do is to constantly readjust your balance. Figure out the difference between early warnings and selfish noise. Figure out what’s loud merely because it’s angry and personal, and what’s loud because it’s important.
And most of all, get straight on who you are trying to please, and why.
This post instantly reminded me of a session I attended at the Web 2.0 conference in 2006. It was a talk from a guy who was a community lead at Firefox and his point was that Firefox is (and has to be) very tuned into the community and what they say and think…but that doesn’t mean they try and do every thing they say.
Firefox said they have some guidelines – but first, they determine a direction and state it publicly. Then, filter community input based on this direction. Meaning, as Seth pointed out, “get straight who you are trying to please and why”
I think what is important about that – is every bit of feedback doesn’t result in an “all hands on deck” change in direction. It’s first know which direction we’re headed – then judging the motive of the comment/suggestion, then applying that comment/suggestion to the plan.
I think that is what is causing me angst at work now – we seem to be reacting to each and ever comment, but nobody seems to care which direction we are heading…so we make decisions based on the comment, which causes a bit of a medusa effect – we look like a hair full of snakes, I hope we can fix it before we turn to stone.
Image by Gian (aka UnBuZzEr) via Flickr
I get so frustrated with the corporate world when the NBT (next best thing) hits their radar. So what’s the latest and greatest NBT – “Community” and “Social Networking”. If you look poll these at the key words at indeed (job search/metrics site) – we find “social networking” and community are on the rise.
So, you say: “But why the frustration – this is a good thing Tom.” I’m getting my feathers ruffled because, they (they = the corporations) are going about it like they always do. (Think bull in a china shop.) You cannot force yourselves into community and social networking.
These companies are pushing and shoving their way into facebook and twitter. Then, when they get there – they treat it like that have every other marketing tool they have used in the past…large and loud. Trust me, friend one on facebook or follow one on twitter. I’ll guarantee within hours – your noise will go up by a bunch, because they will be blasting out the “news”.
It reminds me of the early days of SEO (search engine optimization). The whole SEO thing started out small and ironically, a cool community. We would all work very hard – together – to find new and interesting ways to maximize a web site’s potential. But then things grew and pretty soon there will little SEO firms who would “guarantee” top ten, then soon after top listings on google.
So – in a sense, I’m happy that corporations are “seeing” the value of community and social networking. Because, these things are very cool and very valuable. I’m just so disgusted they want to do it “their” way. They need to take it slow – see how a particular community behaves. Understand that each community is unique and has different rules and methodology. Then engage them, become a part of the social network.
A post from the Register (note – strong language) is touting Facebooks slowdown.
Facebook has suffered its first drop in monthly users, according to numbers from web analytics outfit Nielsen Online.
Five per cent fewer people in the UK visited the site in January compared to the previous month. A total of 400,000 seem to have become bored with the social network and didn’t bother to return.
Hmmmmm…if this is accurate and continues, it will be interesting and see what is next.
In a post on the Community Guy blog – there is an interesting discussion about hire community focused people:
Question – via …well… many people over the years
How do I hire a community manager? Where do I post job openings?Answer:
These days, that’s the 10 million dollar question! The reason I created the Community Guy Jobs Board is that I had regular requests from people for help finding community minds.
In a post from Boing-Boing:
pictures of Ford cars cannot be printed. Not just Ford logos, not just Mustang logos, the car -as a whole- is a Ford trademark and its image can’t be reproduced without permission. So even though Ford has a lineup of enthusiasts who want to show off their Ford cars, the company is bent on alienating them.
Wow – this seems crazy to me, but then I think…do newspapers and broadcast stations do the same thing? Or at least similar. Why wouldn’t we want people to take the content and push it out to more people. Wouldn’t that build more audience, trust and community for product as a whole?
My first thought when I saw this was – you’ve got to be kidding. But after reading this post by
1. Geek out on your products in public
2. Be real
3. If it doesn’t work, build something else
4. Show us what’s cool
5. Trust people who don’t work at your company
Check out the comments after the jump…good stuff.
If you watch the beginning of this video, Ron Paul explains that his fund raising efforts are not being directed by “his people” – it is a grass roots group of people working in his behalf.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alxjl4IjZ9k&feature=user]
If we could do the same thing with newspaper and broadcast websites – we too could be champions of community. We need to figure out our message and stick to it.
Posted in innovation, web concepts Tags: broadcast, community, newspaper, Ron Paul, youtube Comments OffThere are so many posts about how young people give away too much information about themselves with social networking and user generated content sites.
The amount of data collected by services like Facebook and MySpace is immense. At no point in history has so much personal information and content been aggregated and shared in the fashion that these types of services make possible. Online privacy has been a hot-button issue for some time, but the evercreepier assaults on privacy (like Facebook’s Project Beacon) have created ever-stronger calls for more online privacy laws and protections.
While I really think people have to be conscious about what they post, but I think we really have to try and understand that the younger generations are not like old ones. These dudes and dudettes have grown up being more expressive and are OK with information being available.
Sometimes there is something to be said for people who have full transparency – it’s the old concept of the devils I do know about are better than the devils you don’t know about!
Posted in future, new media Tags: community, privacy, social networking, UGC, user generated content 1 Comment »Jason K sent me this link the other day – “You can’t get there from here – Why mainstream media is way up a creek…”
Jason was asking if I thought he should share it with the newsroom – thinking it may freak them out or whatever…and my first reaction was “send it to them”, thinking it would se them off adn makethem think.
Then, I read the article again – and I was like “send it to them”, but for a different reason…to show them what these people are thinking.
But my real question/problem is I’m not sure if I get it. I just have a hard time thinking “people” or “the community” would report news if the media organizations were not involved. Do you really think Joe Shmoe would report on something – do we really think the community is that strong?
I just don’t see it – I would love to hear or find an example to compare this to…any thoughts?
